If you find any problems with the rules (which have been modified from prior years' rules), feel free to let me know so I can look into it. I am basically making mild alterations to pre-existing rules, so if you feel anything should be changed, there's a short window of time to inform me and for any potential changes to be made.

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Greetings, everyone! Please read the rules carefully as some major (and minor) changes have been made from prior years. We have new staff running the FMVs (Fanime Music Videos) and will be happy to answer any questions you might have.

FMV Contest Rules and Guidelines

The rules are put in place to make an even playing field for all contestants. Please keep in mind that we at Fanime aren't perfect, so mistakes can happen. If the mistake is found on your end, we will do our best to contact you and give you the chance to fix it. With the large number of entries expected, we can't devote a lot of time to any one FMV, so some corrections may not be allowed. If the mistake is found on our end we will work as fast as possible to correct it. Remember we on the FMV staff work hard and will do our best to do right by all contestants.

All questions and comments can be sent to: tsu.amv@gmail.com, posted here, or you can PM me.

• Up to, but not exceeding, 2 videos may be submitted per entrant, organization, or group.

• There is no maximum length for videos, but 5 minutes is preferred as the longest length. Keep in mind that videos of excessive length may be cut due to time constraints.

• All videos may not have been submitted to any prior Fanime Con AMV event.

• Any video with extreme sexual and/or excessive violent content will be automatically disqualified from the contest. Keep in mind that some nudity is artistic in nature, but any video that the judges deem in poor taste will be removed.

• Any video with severe encoding problems, obviously downloaded streaming footage (footage taken from YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) and videos containing subtitles that were not specifically created by the editor for the purpose of the video will be disqualified. If your video is found to have one of these problems and time permits, we will attempt to contact you to see if you have a better version available to send to us.

• “Remake” videos are only allowed if they are created by the same editor who created the original, and in that case, we cannot accept a remake of a video whose original was sent in to a prior FanimeCon.

• Videos must be the creation of the person who is entering it. You cannot submit videos on someone else’s behalf.

• Videos containing footage taken from someone else’s video, or footage “remade”, “emulated” or copied scene-for-scene, effect-for-effect are strictly NOT allowed. Anyone found stealing footage will be banned from future contests at FanimeCon.

Video BumpersPlease don't put opening or closing bumpers in your video. We will be putting uniform title bumpers to all the videos ourselves.

Submission Due Dates

All videos must be in the hands of the video coordinator no later than the Hard Deadline of 11:59PM PST/PDT on Wednesday April 30th, 2014. Additional points will be awarded for all entries submitted on the Soft Deadline on or before Wednesday April 23rd, 2014. All videos submitted will be tested to make sure that there are no problems with playback. If there are any problems, there is a short amount of time to fix and/or resubmit your work.

Online SubmissionsOnline submissions are now the only method of entry to the contest. We are no longer accepting physical media via mail. Please upload your file to any file sharing service you like and direct us as to where (and if complicated, how) to download it. We can also download video from your AMVs.org uploads if your video has been uploaded there. There are many other file sharing websites online and you may use any that you want, just don’t send links to any illegal or illicit file hosting websites. Entries are not accepted at-con.

Entry form will be added at a later date.

File FormatsWe are only accepting files that are formatted in MPEG2, AVI, or MP4. If you choose to select a format that is different from the one’s listed we will contact you and ask that you change it’s format. Please, when exporting your files stay within official resolutions 720X480 or 1280x720 and with stereo audio. Videos may be rejected if the resolution is too small.

Video:

MPEG2, AVI and MP4s accepted.Frame rate should be either 23.97 or 29.97. Please use resolutions of 720x480 or 1280x720. Higher resolutions will be scaled down.Please compress your video- don’t send us your original uncompressed copy. While we don’t have a limit on filesize, we would prefer to not have to download 500MB+ videos!

Audio:

• 192 Kilobits per second or better• Choose stereo over joint stereo for best quality• Sample at 44.1Khz

*Note! When resizing your video the choice of maintaining the aspect ratio will be determined on a video-to-video basis.

Events and JudgingJudging staff will consist of Fanime FMV coordination staff, Fanime Con staff, outside technical and artistic judges, and AMV editors not participating in Fanime AMV events for the current year.Fanimecon has four genres as follows:• ACTION - Adventure, Horror, Action.• DRAMA - Romance, Emotions, Tear-Jerkers, Conflict• COMEDY- Think Comedy, Parody, just things that really make you laugh.• EXPERIMENTAL/TRAILER: AMV Trailers and anything that doesn’t match the criteria for the above categories will be placed here.

*** Note! Judging staff reserves the right to place your video in any category if they feel the video was misplaced. To avoid any conflicts we will contact you before this move.

EXTRA POINTS:2 Extra points will be given to those who submit on or before April 23rd, 2014

*Note! Please keep in mind that the 100 point scale and any extra points are assigned per judge on the judges panel. This means that every point has the potential to make or break a winner.

The judging staff will view each entry and choose which entries will make it into the finals. Don't despair - those that don't make it into the finals will still be shown along with those that did make it into the contest during the con in-between programming during the convention.

NotificationsDifferent notifications will be sent out to each contestant depending on how far they made it through judging.

1st Email – This will be sent to you notifying you that your video has been received and logged into our system.

2nd Email – There will be two different types sent out. Type A will be informing you that you have made it into the contest. Type B will be informing you yours was not chosen this year.

3rd Email – This Email will be sent to everyone giving you the time, date, and seating arrangements.

Award Classifications

• Judges Choice:Judges Choice will be decided prior to Fanime Con and will not be announced until the Award Ceremony.• Viewers Choice:The attending audience of the finals judging will decide Viewers Choice. All audience members will vote on their favorite video by ballot.• Bonus Awards:This year’s bonus award is based upon Fanimecon’s theme. As this is their 20th Anniversary, the con’s theme is “Celebration” with an additional Beach Party theme. Videos that follow the spirit of celebration in some way and/or involve beach parties will be accepted as potential contestants for the bonus award.

Each genre will have a winner. There will also be two Best of Show awards chosen out of all submissions (one from Judges and one from Audience). The bonus award will be given to the video which best meets the theme out of ALL entries, as chosen by the Judges. Awards will be submitted to all winners during the Award Ceremony at the con. You do not have to be present at the con to receive your award but it would be nice if you were. Any awards unclaimed at con will be mailed out.

PRIZES:A $50 Gift Card will be given to each first place and Best in Show winner. With Judges and Audience votes, that means we have 10 gift cards to give away, and you can potentially win up to 3 for a single video (First Place x 2 and Best in Show).

Exhibition VideosExhibition videos will be accepted and may be shown at other events during the con. If you wish to submit an exhibition FMV please make sure your documentation says that it specifically is for the exhibition. Otherwise it will be judged as a regular FMV and may or may not be disqualified.

Notice!!! Fanime Con 2014 reserves the right to amend the rules at any time.

Hey Matthew, Our apologies regarding the issue with your Action submission on the first day. Although I wasn't on site, I made sure your AMV got played on the second day. We've taken measures against that kind of issue in the future. Your amv actually got enough votes on Saturday alone to be placed 1st in Action by the audience. Congrats!

I would like to congratulate all of this year's winners! A special shout out to Katherine Gavin who won a record setting 6 awards in a single year! Congrats! Great job everyone! If you, as an editor would like to post a link to your video so that others can see it, please feel free to do so on this post.

I resent the proper video to the staff with instructions to make an announcement about it not being in the correct place in the show, that it was A-8 on the ballots and to play it first. According to the ballots we got, it seemed to work as it actually got quite a large number of votes.

Thanks for bringing that up. I will call them at the Con and make sure they start the seating and the viewing at the proper time. I will see what I cab do about the playlist issue since it was all prerendered. We did make sure that they at least have all the individual submissions on site. We might at least be able to announce it and play it at the beginning of the show. I'll post on here as soon as I can get a confirmation of each.

Congrats to everyone that made the show!Please remember that each room will be playing the categories in a different order at each showing.One room will be playing Action, Drama, Comedy, then Experimental.The other will be playing Drama, Action, Experimental, then Comedy.

Also, please note that we have done our best to showcase as many submissions as possible. That being said, we got approved to go over our original scheduled time by about 15 minutes! Whooot!

Hi everyone, I'm about to post this year's line up on it's own post. We would like to address the issue regarding the sampling of other editor's AMV's. After much discussion and consideration it has been decided that the submission by that particular editor will remain in place for the following reasons:a) While we can't condone the claiming other people's work as your own, the video submitted to FanimeCon was not the video that was being called into question, but rather a different AMV. We felt that since the particular AMV that was the subject of discussion was not submitted to us, it should not affect a separate entry. Had any evidence come to light about the video that was submitted to us, that editor and the entry would most certainly have been disqualified.

b) The second reason, but unfortunately one that is a reality, is that at the time that this info came to light, the line up had already been finaled, edited, rendered and sent to print at FanimeCon. Making additional alterations to the show so close to the start of Fanime would put us so close to the deadline that it could potentially run the risk of not being completed in time possibly having to cancel at least the Friday show. We feel that jeopardizing the hard work of our outstanding edtiors would be unfair.

I hope that you can see that this was not an easy call to make and that we will do our best to make sure that things like this are properly handled. Thanks.

In the meanwhile, I'm pretty sure you still get to join the other editors in the editor-only pre-seating, so we'll see you there!

That's right! I think I will be able to get access, since I believe some people who entered are out of state and won't be able to attend Fanime. Does anyone know if we are allowed to bring in a friend with us? Literally one friend?

I've brought multiple friends with me before. Usually there's more seating set aside for editors than necessary, and in recent years editors can basically sit wherever they like. Sometimes there's an area marked off for editors, but you don't HAVE to sit there. As they get closer to the end of general seating they let non-editors join the editor seating area. So one friend should be juuust fine.

Agreed. We won't be there this year, but I will make sure that the staff running the seating will take care of our editor's like in previous years.

Hi everyone, All the emails have gone out as of tonight! If you submitted something and haven't gotten something back, please let us know asap! Also, congrats to all of our finalists! This year was exceptionally tough as the level of entries got so much better across the board. Those of you who didn't make it this year should still be proud as well.

The Judge's Panel had nothing but great reviews on all of them. Unfortunately, we had to cut almost 5 hours of worth of entries into a 2 hour show! We tried out best to include as many as possible in this year's show. In fact, just a heads up if you're at the show, we got approval to go about 10 minutes past our original allotted time once we showed them how good this years videos were. I wish we could get more time for all of you. Again, with out all of you, we have no show and we appreciate all of your hard work!

I will be posting the official line up in a new post just like last year. You should all be very proud!

We're finishing up the Judge's Panel and will start sending out the next round of emails tomorrow. This means that you should expect you emails letting you know if you submission has made it into the final show in the next few days. Cheers!

All confirmation emails have gone out as of Friday May 3rd. If you sent us something and have not gotten an email saying we received your entry, contact us immediately!!!

The next round of emails letting you know if you got into the final show will be posted as soon as a date for the Judge's Panel is confirmed. In the mean time, please feel free to let us know about any questions, comments, or concerns. Cheers!

All confirmation emails for entries received have been sent out as of Tuesday April 30th. If you sent us something and have not gotten an email back, please contact us asap! There is only 1 DAY LEFT!!!

So here's what we have so far for 2013 as of April 24th. We still getting more submissions everyday!(please note that it is still early as we usually get a flood of submissions during the last few days before the hard deadline):

Action: 14Drama: 19Comedy: 6Experimental:15

Keep in mind that we usually have enough time per category for 5, maybe 6, entries on average. This is why we have such crazy competition and it hurts us to make cuts. Over the past couple of years we have increased the length of the show from 2 hours up to close to 3 hours as we try to squeeze as many entries as possible into the final show.